Turning Point
by Skeletal-Roses
Summary: CIVIL WAR AU Peter's fathers discover when he is still young that he is a Timeturner; he can go to any point in time. Years after the war ends SHIELD director Tony Stark is desperate for a way to fix their broken future and sees Peter as the key to his plans.


Chapter One: Where Do We Start?

He had just stumbled into his room and made his place in his bed when his alarm clock went off. Peter groaned loudly into his pillow. Every inch of him hurt and he carefully rolled onto his bruised side to reach the offending noise maker on his bedside table.

He stretched out his arm and felt his muscles pull and yell at him for the slightest movements. Cringing but still trying to shut off the damned noise, deciding quicker was better, he threw his hand out as fast as he could and made contact with the picture frame sitting just next to the clock. He swore as it hit the floor with a loud crack. Mumbling curse words and groaning, he slowly sat up in the bed to swing his legs over the side and ease himself to the floor.

"Damnit," he muttered. The picture had landed face up, the shattered glass creating a sharp zigzag pattern over the smiling faces of he and his dads. His face twisted to a pained grimace as he lowered himself off the bed and knelt to pick up the glass, one hand up on the bed holding himself steady.

It'd been quite the day. In the picture as well. Their first time as a real family on vacation; not just the three of them. All of the Avengers had tagged along that day and Peter had spent time with all of them. An extraordinary feat to say the least. In the picture Peter stood proudly in between Tony and Steve holding both their hands and smiling widely. Tony was in the middle of a laugh and Steve had a smile just as big as Peter's. It was before all of the fighting happened. It had been almost 9 years ago. Before super spider powers and before Steve...

Peter shook his head. No. Just no. He wasn't going to think about that. Not right now and especially not after he got only 30 seconds of sleep. Besides, it'd been 3 years. Shouldn't he be over it by now?

Still, there was a part of him that wanted to go back. Just for a little while. To see them all together and happy again. Before powers, before training, before Intergalactic war, before...Well just before.

The teenager collected the shards into a pile on his bedroom floor and threw them into the little trash can by his desk, which at this point had been overflowing because he had forgotten to get rid of it the last garbage day. Oops.

Before setting the picture back down he ran his hand over Steve's face. Then looked again at Tony's. Peter clenched his jaw to keep back tears as he asked himself when the last time he heard his dad laugh had been. It had been three years since he had last seen his pop. Just as long since he had seen his dad smile.

He knew Tony had thought about using his son's gift to get Steve back even if he never said anything. But Peter had told him, even before the...accident...,that where there is death there will always be death. Peter couldn't use his abilities to change time without balancing the universe.

Peter shook his head trying to rid himself of these thoughts.

Maybe he'd seen Shannon again and she could help him sort through his head. He knew all he had to do was find her in a time before he had his full powers. Before he absorbed her powers and became the Time Turner he was today. But now, he glanced at the clock, he needed to get ready for school.

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The sun managed to make a miraculous appearance on what was to be a dreary winter's day in New York City. Tony Stark mentally flipped it off. The much-too-bright light having found its way into his 'office'- if you could call it that- much sooner than he'd have liked.

Most mornings Tony wasn't even conscious at this time of day, but late in the evening -or was it earlier that morning-he thought of an idea too great to ignore. Thus he headed directly for SHIELD's NYC headquarters. And so there he was. Underground in a freezing cold 'office' clickity clacking away on a tablet. His brow was creased-more so than usual, he's 65 for goodness sake-and the glow of the computer and his arc reactor were the only lights in the room excepting the blasted sun.

Tony grumbled a bit when he threw his head back to gather the dregs of his coffee from the bottom of the mug only to find he had done that hours ago. Guess that calls for a break then. He gathered the mug and tablet and made his way to the makeshift kitchen the agents in his sector used. Along the way he passed few agents but the ones he passed seemed more shocked than anything to find him here. All except one.

"Director Stark, there's something urgent that requires your attention."

"Natasha, always one for formalities," the assassin rolled her eyes, "but I guess since I'm here for once I can take a look at what you're talking about. But urgent means important and important means work and if I'm going to work on something," Tony held the mug up at their eye level, "I'm gonna need another cup-o-joe."

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Peter stepped into the lab quietly but not sneekly. There were discarded coffee mugs and papers scattered across the desk. This wasn't at all unusual, mind you, Peter walked into this scene most every morning. However there was an extreme lack of person sleeping amidst the pile of mugs and paper. And a body missing from the couch in the lab too. Confused, Peter called out to JARVIS.

"Hey, where's dad?"

"I believe Mr. Stark left for the New York base of SHIELD early this morning. He seemed in quite the rush and asked me to relay the message to you when you awoke."

"Ah," so dad was at work. This early? It was barely 7 o'clock. That was just weird even with all the trouble going on at SHIELD. "Did he say anything else about it?"  
Peter had worried about his father since his Pops passed. The three of them knew Peter had an ability like no other; he could travel through time.

"_A gift," his pops had said when Peter overheard his fathers talking after a particularly strange day. "Our son has a gift, Tony."_

They had been at central park, doing their usual walk route one fall day when Peter was 7 years old. The boy, knowing the route by heart and full of a strange energy, took off before his parents and hopped along the sidewalk path stopping at the interesting rocks, bugs and toadstools he happened upon.

So while Peter investigated the world around him he ended up, naturally, not watching where he was going and ran right into a woman standing on the sidewalk.

He stumbled back and she gasped a bit.

"_A gift like what Steve? Like yours? Because last I checked talking to imaginary people is not a superpower, its a sign that somebody's gone off the deep end."_

"_Our son is not crazy, Tony. What I meant was he's creative. He always has been really, and to create such a story; a woman no one can see who can travel through time in order to protect the world? That's creative and I don't think we should stifle it."_

"Sorry, miss lady. I wasn't watching." The woman gasped and looked Peter right in the eye.

"You can see me?" She seemed shocked and Peter was confused. She was standing right in the middle of the sidewalk for crying out loud! Was it possible for someone to not see her? Well, given they were watching where they were going.

"Uh...yeah?" Peter stood back up and brushed the dirt off his jeans. He wasn't sure what to do after that. Did he walk away from this crazy lady who seemed to think no one could see her, or did he talk to her? What would dad do?

After a moment to gather up his thoughts Peter extended his hand, very sure of himself. "My name's Peter." And flashed her a smile. He'd seen his dad do this millions of times with the people he'd meet at galas and work and even just on the street.

The woman was taken aback but at the same time there was a look on her face. Not quite shock; it was mixed with excitement. Surprise?

"Hi, Peter. I'm Shannon," with this she smiled and took his hand. Peter couldn't help but think she had a pretty smile and voiced his opinion.

"Hi Shannon, you have a pretty smile." Her smile faltered and Peter felt like he had done something wrong. But then she laughed.

A worried look washed over his face.

"T-thanks, Peter," she didn't want him to feel too weird but at the same time, she couldn't help but laugh, "why don't we sit on that bench over there and I'll answer your questions." How did she know he had questions?

With a hesitant nod Peter followed her and hopped up onto the bench he legs dangling just over the side. He'd always been a little smaller for his age. Pops said that was okay. Not everybody was big even though it felt like that sometimes. Peter was perfectly normal, his pops reassured him.

"_Well I want to know why he thinks he can make 'Time Warps' and other such nonsense."_

"_I don't know, Tony why don't you ask him?"_

"_Because when I mention it he starts talking about this 'Shannon' chick. He tells me about conversations with her. I don't like that he's talking with 'her' or anything else like 'her'."_

"Why did you think you were invisible, miss. Shannon?" Peter asked as soon as he got up on the seat.

"Right to it, eh?" She added under her breath, "I knew you were a smart kid." She took a deep breath and asked him a question in answer to his own, "Have you ever noticed you tend to see things happen twice?"

"_Did you see that, Steve?!" _Steve could only nod. Still shocked as to what had just happened. Tony almost dropped his mug when he tripped over a rug while walking sleepily to the kitchen to refill it. But he hadn't fallen and the mug remained intact, hell, it stayed in his hand! Just before he started falling a small, but strong pair of arms wrapped around his waist and simply helped him regain balance.

There was just one problem though; Peter had been standing at the bottom of the stair well, about 20 feet away and on the other side of a wall. He couldn't have possibly seen what was happening.

Peter looked at his feet not sure what to do or how to respond to his father yelling right after he had stopped him from falling. Seeing his son's distress, Steve lept into action.

"_Peter," _Steve started gently turning Peter's sheepish glances from his father's shocked face to his pop's light eyes, "_did you...did you Timewarp?" _

Peter crossed the floor of the lab to the nearest screen. He knew his dad hated when he looked at his research but in this instance Peter just felt a bad feeling about it. Tony never left the lab before noon let alone the house. Something was going on.

The first screen he came across had a detailed timeline of the last 4 years obviously cross referenced with the hologram sitting right next to it; a time line having contained Tony's own personal endeavors the media could only dream to get their hands on.

The second seemed to be a bit more confidential-of course all of it was- but this had a SHIELD heading on it. It seemed to be a file on all of SHIELD's past attempts of time travel. Peter breathed in deeply and shook his head trying to forget what he saw. Dad couldn't possibly be trying this. It won't work.

He had to get out of there.

Peter sighed, hand on the doorway to Tony's lab. "Save and shut down everything, JARVIS. I'm gonna head to school now. Text me if anything happens 'kay?"

"Of course Mr. Stark-Rogers." The lights shut off simultaneously and Peter exited the lab with a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach.

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"So. What's the urgent matter?" Tony was sitting with Nat on two metal chairs on either side of a card table. Iron Man was now cradling a hot cup of coffee and watching his co-worker and number one Avenger across the table.

Natasha looked at the table top a solemn look on her face. Without saying another word she simply handed him a file.  
Banner, Bruce Dr.

Tony stiffened and took the file quickly from Natasha's hands turning it open he saw what he had had nightmares of millions of times. Just under Bruce's name on his file cover page was a large black stamped **Deceased**.

The director fell back into his chair chills attacking him; it was hard to catch his breath. Bruce had been missing for 2 years now. They had search parties around the globe keeping an eye out for any trace of the man or his work.

"Are we sure?" Tony could have laughed at how broken and soft his voice was in that moment, if laughing was something he could do now.

"Our boy's found him just outside Romania about 15 hours ago. Clint helped to lead the party that broke in. He said when they got there, when they got to where those guys had held...it was too late."

Tony tried not to let his discomfort show but to no avail. Seeing Natasha nearly crack wasn't helping him feel strong enough to keep his game face.

"Do we know what they wanted with him?" Another impossibly quiet question from Tony Stark.

"Apparently, our team found traces of the Merchant's gas. A broken vial once containing it was smashed against the floor. The medical team thinks it was able to destroy the Hulk and..."

"Bruce is finally where he wants to be." He paused. "How do we know it was suicide?"

The assassin took a deep breath. Then Natasha gave him that look. The look that said, 'I see you're hurting and I don't want to hurt you more but there's more.' Tony nodded his reply and Natasha took out her Stark phone. After tapping the screen twice she handed it to Tony.

About 1 min and 25 seconds of video played before Tony was done. The lab was dark, probably to keep Bruce from knowing what day it was. He was at a computer and moved from the desk to a cabinet at the other side before going back and fiddling with the computer again. Every few seconds he'd peer into the cabinet it made Tony want to know what was inside.

The last 10 seconds was of Bruce looking up at the camera and giving a two finger salute before throwing the glass vial in his hands to the floor. In the last 5 seconds the most brilliant radiologist on the planet-Tony's closest friend- was dead.


End file.
